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I bought this a while back and am just getting around to drinking it. It is a nice ripe with little bitterness and a fair amount of fermentation flavor. I would say I noticed the earthy taste until the sixth steep. Wasn’t really paying attention to the specifics but it had a nice sweet taste.

I brewed this twelve times in a 150ml gaiwan with 10.9g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min. I could have gotten a couple more steeps out of the leaves.

Drinking this now because it is caffeine free. I put this on to brew and totally forgot about it. I don’t know if I brewed it for five minutes or even ten minutes. But it seems to be hard to overbrew. Came out tasting good with the earthy apple taste peculiar to chamomile tea. This is good chamomile tea.

I brewed 4 tsp leaf in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper for I am guessing five minutes with boiling water.

Picked several of this brand of tea up at Williams Sonoma the other day, They sell high end products so I suspected the teas they sell would be good. This tea is good but it is very strong. I put sugar into black teas so I am drinking this with a small amount of sugar. I think without the sugar it would be too strong for my tastes. It’s not so strong as to need milk in my opinion although as this is a British style blend I suspect it is made with mild and sugar in mind. I am not sure if Fortnum and Mason is an American company or a British company but they are an old brand. This tea has a bit of a fruity note and I do like it. I don’t necessarily know that I would buy it again.

I steeped this tea once in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 3 minutes.

Drinking this again after storing it for a year in the New York humidity. I did not notice any ill effects from my storage. In fact this time I noticed no bitterness. There was still a lot of fermentation taste to it. It was good, nice and sweet with notes of chocolate still. Still had a bit of a fruity taste in the end too. Still very good.

I steeped this twelve times in a 160ml Silver Teapot with 12.6g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min.

Bought this about a year ago and promptly lost it within my tea storage. Well I came across it yesterday and decided I would try it today. Over the course of twelve steeps it turned into a tasty raw puerh tea with a lot of sweet notes. It did not start off as well though. It was smoky in the first two infusions and there were some notes of leather and tobacco trying to pop through. These notes were weak and lasted only a few steeps. There was also a bit of a sour note for a few steeps in there too, presumably from the fact that this tea was dry stored for the last year or so. These notes did not last either. What emerged in later steeps was something of a sweet note. Not the apricots of a young sheng mind you but a sweet note none the less. There never was much bitterness to this tea and none at all in the end. This is one I probably should make room for in the pumidor if I find something else I want to take out as it is full to capacity and I have no place for another pumidor.

I steeped this twelve times in a 160ml solid silver teapot with 10g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, and 2 min.

This was a very cheap tea. It cost me just over $10. But it is pretty damn tasty. It was sweet from the start with a fair amount of fermentation flavor to it. That fermentation flavor was not unpleasant or fishy in nature. There were some notes of chocolat early on. And sweet notes in general to this tea. I am not completely sure how to characterize the sweet notes that developed as I resteeped this tea. I gave it twelve steeps and judging by the color in the tea it would have gone two or three more steeps. Not bad lasting power for such a cheap tea. This is also the first tea I am trying from Acupspring Tea Co on Aliexpress. I don’t know yet whether the other inexpensive teas I bought from them will be good too. While this tea was far from phenomenal it was pretty good as ripe teas go. The taste of a ripe tea is often in how good the fermentation was and not in how good the leaves were. If I were to order from this company again and that is unlikely I would get another one of these. The reason I wouldn’t order from them again is this order was from the 11/11 sale. They claim both original packages got lost in the mail. In any case one of the original tracking numbers tracked and was delivered to someone outside of Boston. The other original tracking numbers never went live at all. I really don’t believe that the post office lost the first two packages. I think they just didn’t ship the packages for a month after my order. I still have one package or theirs that is still in China. If this one is delivered to someone outside of Boston I will just open up an Aliexpress case about it. So in short the tea was good, the tea company not trustworthy.

I steeped this tea twelve times in a 150 ml gaiwan with 10g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min.

This is certainly an interesting tea. I had actually bought a cake of this without knowing it was coming in my subscription box. There was an initial note of caramel to this in the first steep. But unfortunately it seemed almost gone in the second steep. There was little bitterness to this tea and it got darker as I resteeped it. The sweet note that emerged tasted a little flat to me. It was still a good tea, just not as good as I had hoped for. This one might be better with sugar.

I brewed this eight times in a 150ml gaiwan with 200 degree water. I gave it an 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec.

This is pretty good matcha. I made it a little too strong. Three scoops of matcha to about six ounces of water. It would have been better witih just two scoops of matcha. It’s got a vegetal somewhat sweet taste to it. I probably wouldn’t have bought this but for Yunomi’s incredible sale a couple of weeks ago where they had $100 Off a $200 purchase. This matcha goes for $45 for a small tin of matcha but it comes in a beautiful matcha tin that is worth half the price alone. And I think the quality is high.

Whisked three matcha scoops of matcha with approx 6 oz of 160 degree water.

No one seemed to have created a page for this offering from the WHite2Tea club in the current month so I thought I would. This is a fairly nice tea for a liu bao tea. Liu Bao teas usually in my experience have a strong wet storage taste. This one had no wet storage taste at all. It was a combination of good and bad. There was a sweet note that I would describe a raisins perhaps. Although there is probably a better description out there. I just can’t think of it. There was also another note in the background that was somewhat unpleasant, not sure how to describe it. Liu Bao teas in my estimate cannot really be compared successfully to puerh because they just aren’t as good as puerh and unless they change something Liu Bao will never be as good as puerh. I am not sure if this Liu Bao was a fermented tea. If it was I didn’t get a real earthy note from it. Overall I managed eight steeps and decided it was enough.

I steeped this eight times in a 150ml gaiwan with 10.1g leaf and boiling water. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, and 30 sec. This tea would have gone a few more steeps but I just didn’t like it enough to continue.

This tea was overall very good. I gave it ten steeps in a 190ml gaiwan. It had a fair amount of fermentation flavor and that flavor was a bit unpleasant but not fishy. It only lasted a few steeps. There was little bitterness to this tea and a nice sweet note from the beginning. While I did not notice chocolate notes they could have been there. I did notice in the later steeps a dates note developed. This is a good tea for a bargain price, currently on sale for less than $20. While it was not spectacular it was a good solid tea that tasted very good and did not have too much fermentation taste left. This is one I would buy another of in time.

I steeped this tea ten times in a 190ml gaiwan with boiling water and 15g leaf. I gave it a 10 second rinse. I steeped it for 5 sec, 5 sec, 7 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec, 20 sec, 25 sec, 30 sec, 45 sec, and 1 min.